Arizona Living: Xeriscape in Full Color

If you know enough about desert plants and those that will thrive in the drastic climate of Arizona, it does make selecting the right ones to create a low maintenance landscape a lot easier. Anyone can research which xeriscape plants require the least water to make them easy to grow around a home in Phoenix. Yet, not everyone can take those same desert plants and arrange them to become a work of art. Phoenix landscaping is far more than picking the easiest plants you can find. Beautifully landscaped properties will always be the work of an artistic person who is also a landscape designer.

The process of laying out the planting plan of a xeriscaped yard is just the frosting, the final touches that make your Phoenix landscape design become something attractive, let alone stunning. Every perennial flower, ornamental grass, succulent or cactus, shrub, tree and vine is an important player in a well orchestrated ebb and flow of any xeriscape design. Pulling the entire scene together also leans heavily on precisely placing the hardscape elements of pavements, stone or stucco walls, fountains, statuary and even landscape boulders.

The brightest plant on the right of the walk, Blue Agave looks even bluer with all the yellow around it.

To really have a fabulous desert landscaping display, form and line is just as important as color, texture and form. The well skilled and talented Phoenix landscape designer will be able to visualize the scene that is developing as each new item is placed on the paper that becomes a map to building a wonderful yard. Everything has a place and a color in this fine example of a lovely desert landscape. Yellows, blue and purple, earth tones and finally different shades of green are mixed and placed just right for flow and mass, accent and background. To add even more depth each area has a singular accent plant that arrests more attention than the others.

There are no vibrant flowers beyond the soft Yellow Bells along the walk. Not that this particular Phoenix xeriscape design won’t have a variety of brightly colored blooms, because in other parts of the year it will. The thing is that any landscape design that is done well, will have this much contrast and depth to it whether something is in flower at the moment or not. This is what separates a mediocre Phoenix landscape designer from the best. It doesn’t matter whether you live in the desert of Arizona or the verdant rolling valleys around the Mississippi. Landscape design is the most intricate form of art that requires more skill, knowledge and talent than most people assume. Unless of course, you don’t mind that your Phoenix landscaping isn’t anything special.